Old Stamfordian Club Newsletter No

OLD STAMFORDIAN CLUB NEWSLETTER NO. 43 APRIL 2016 Forthcoming Events OS Golf All OS are warmly invited to participate in all future events. The following dates are planned for this year: • Spring Meeting at Luffenham Heath – Saturday 14 May • Summer Meeting at Burghley Park – Friday 19 August • Autumn Meeting at Luffenham Heath – Saturday 8 October Spring and Autumn Meetings please contact: Geoff Holyoake ([email protected]) or John Cartwright ([email protected]) Summer Meeting please contact: Neil Nottingham ([email protected]) OS Reunion Weekend Friday 1 July to Sunday 3 July FRIDAY The SES Foundation Supporting: The Andrew Carter Cup Touch Rugby Tournament 5.30 on Mainfields. Teams of six. Spectators welcome. New teams welcome. Contact Cameron Park ([email protected]). Gareth Hook ([email protected]) or David Laventure ([email protected]). SES Foundation hosted Hog Roast and pay bar for all SES alumni. Tickets for the Hog Roast must be booked at [email protected]. SATURDAY Registration From 9.30am in the Reading Room. Coffee available. A complete list of events will be on display in the Reading Room. Memorial Service 10.00 am: Memorial Service for Alan Staveley in the Chapel. (1916-2016, Pupil 1924-35, Headmaster 1968-78) Old Stamfordian Club AGM 11.00 am in the South Dining Hall. Annual Luncheon of the Old Stamfordian Club Formal buffet luncheon held in the Oswald Elliott Hall for OS and partners at 12.30pm. Advanced booking and payment of £25 per head or £16.50 for OS leavers since 2011. Cricket OS XI v School XI at the school 1.30pm Contact Gareth Hook ([email protected]) Tours of the School Meet in the Atrium from 2.00pm. Afternoon Tea In the marquee for OS and their families at 4.00 Evening Barbecue With music in conjunction with the SHS Old Girls. OS and wives, partners, families and friends welcome. From 6.15 at the marquee – £7.50 Continued on inside rear cover Editorial Welcome to this forty-third edition of the Old Stamfordian Club Newsletter and the second edition for which I have had the privilege of being the Editor. In my introduction to my first edition, I wrote about the various purposes which the Newsletter seeks to serve and the importance of its being relevant to the interests of as many of its readers as possible. I reflected that this was no mean feat when its readership was drawn from such an impressive span of generations. That challenge is just as valid this year and I hope that it succeeds in its ambition through the range and relevance of the topics it covers, the breadth and depth of the information it includes and the balance it achieves between reminiscence and anticipation of events to come. In this spirit, I very much hope therefore that you will enjoy the varied articles it includes. You will be able to gain an insight into the remarkably vibrant and successful contemporary life of the School, which extends through its academic and sporting successes into a very wide range of other activities where the opportunity to engage helps to prepare its pupils for the challenges ahead; enjoy learning about aspects of school life which might at first appear from a rather more distant past, yet were activities which focused on the same values of personal growth – and having fun – on which today’s programme of activities is based; and see how the OS Club is actively promoting that agenda by supporting members of the School and the Club to achieve their ambitions in practical ways. Of course, the most important aspect to all these accounts is the people involved – and their personal and collective contribution to the current life of the School and as part of a community of which we were all members at some point in the past. Inevitably, there are, each year, friends and colleagues who have left us and it is an essential role of this publication to record both their passing and the role they played both while at the School and subsequently. That could make for a rather sombre experience, but I suggest that the accounts here seek to pay appropriately respectful reflection on their loss and also a sense of celebration of what they achieved and the sheer pleasure, for us, of having been their friends or acquaintances. Perhaps this is nowhere more true than in the accounts of not one, but two, retired Headmasters who have passed away since the last edition was published, a remarkable coincidence. Between them, they covered a period of some 30 years at the School and, as such will have had a profound effect in many different ways on the lives of a very large proportion of the Newsletter’s readership. I particularly hope that you find these accounts are rewarding, illuminating and a source of fond memories. Finally, I would like to continue to encourage all readers to do three things, on which the success of the OS Club depends. First, to engage directly with its various activities, whether sports, social or in other ways, using the contact details supplied throughout the Newsletter; secondly, to spread the word about the Club to those past members of the School whom they know but who are perhaps not members themselves or who have lost contact with the Club or the School – growing the OS community is a key objective on which its future success depends; and thirdly, as last year, to invite your thoughts on how this publication could develop in the future. As I said last year, this is your publication, not mine and the extent to which it succeeds in its ambitions is entirely for you to judge. So, your comments will always be most welcome. Robert Thorpe 1 Message from the Chairman 2016 Your Club has been very busy over the past year and has a number of significant achievements under its belt. Nevertheless, we have also sustained an exceptional number of major losses along the way. Chief amongst these, the Stamford School community has seen the deaths of two headmasters in the past nine months. Geoffrey Timm, Headmaster between 1978 and 1997 died in July of last year and his predecessor Alan Staveley (OS ’35), Headmaster between 1968 and 1978 died in February. Both were also Vice-Presidents of the Old Stamfordian Club. The contribution of each of them to Stamford School was immense, the one carrying on the work of the other and their respective impacts are covered in some detail later in the Newsletter. As Club Chairman, I was one of a number of contributors to Geoffrey’s Memorial Service in the chapel in September and as a ‘Timm boy’ myself was pleased and honoured to have been given the opportunity to say a few words on your behalf. Likewise, I was able to represent the Club at Alan’s funeral at Wing in March, conscious that this man had interviewed me as a ten-year-old boy in the early summer of 1978 in what was presumably one of the last such interviews he conducted. Michael Ward, a popular, indeed inspirational, teacher of biology died suddenly in June. Many of us (your Chairman included) were grateful for Michael’s intelligent, friendly and very civilising influence on our schooldays. Pat King (OS ’53), a stalwart OS and serving Committee member, also died suddenly in November. Pat’s loyalty to the Club and his pithy and well-judged contributions at Committee meetings were always appreciated. A number of the Committee represented the Club at Pat’s funeral at Marholm, and since then a small donation has been made in his memory to the RAF Benevolent Fund. All were loyal and reliable supporters of School and /or Club over many years and their departure represents a genuine breach with the past and leaves a certain void within Club ranks. They do, however, live on vividly in the memories of many of us and as long as they do so, their influence will also continue. Others who must be recorded as hors de combat, albeit happily less terminally, include first and foremost, the Principal of Stamford Endowed Schools, Stephen Roberts. Stephen is retiring in the summer after eight very successful years at the helm. He has been a longstanding supporter of the OS Club, a constant source of wisdom and also of occasionally detailed and arcane information which has never ceased to be of utility and surprise to your Committee. Alan Maddox, former Chairman, longstanding Secretary, eminence grise, guide, philosopher and friend, retired as Secretary in June 2015 and stood down from the Committee. Alan’s experience and advice has been invaluable to a long succession of 2 chairmen and his counsel will be much missed, although we hope that he will continue to be a regular and reliable presence at future social events. Will Phelan, who steps down as Headmaster this summer, will not be memorialised here as this is not ‘good-bye’, or even au-revoir since he moves onwards and upwards, succeeding to the role of Principal. Although their presence at OS Committee meetings is a matter of record in the minutes, members should be aware that the support and goodwill of Will and Stephen, both in relation to their respective roles and their personal enthusiasm to see the Club flourish cannot be under-estimated. We offer our congratulations to each and wish them both well on the next stage of their journeys. Looking back, I can truly say – and I am painfully conscious it is a cliché even as I write – that it has been a privilege to get to know such men so well.

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